It is official, the COVID vaccine mandate has been repealed for all U.S. service members:
President Joe Biden is pictured signing the Respect for Marriage Act on Dec. 13, 2022, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. On Friday, Dec. 23, 2022, Biden signed the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, an annual law that outlines defense priorities and spending. ((AP Photo/Andrew Harnik))
But the bill also ends one of Biden’s former top priorities in making the coronavirus mandatory for U.S. service members. Republican lawmakers successfully included the measure that rescinds Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s August 2021 order requiring troops to receive the coronavirus inoculation or face punishment, including dismissal from the military. Some 8,200 service members were discharged from the military this year for refusing the vaccine.
Republicans also tried to include a measure in the NDAA that would force the military services to reinstate those service members who were discharged because of the mandate, but that effort failed.
The Pentagon has not said what it plans to do now that the vaccine requirement has been ended. Defense Department spokespeople this week said they could not yet comment on the issue.
It looks like the COVID-19 vaccination requirement for all DOD service members may soon be coming to an end if this legislation passes and is signed by the President:
Master Sgt. Cherie Gregory, 66th Medical Squadron functional manager, prepares a vaccine during a point of distribution at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., Nov. 9, 2022. (Linda LaBonte Britt/U.S. Air Force)
The final version of the fiscal 2023 defense authorization bill is likely to rescind Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III’s August 2021 memo ordering COVID-19 vaccines for most troops, a source familiar with the matter said Monday.
Ending the requirement, under which service members who aren’t fully vaccinated are subject to discharge, has been a top priority of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and other senior Republicans in both chambers. McCarthy raised the issue with President Joe Biden in a meeting last week and reiterated over the weekend that the mandate should be repealed as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.
This probably did not impress the Kim regime too much considering this response has been done before:
A B-1B Lancer strategic bomber at the Andersen Air Force Base in Guam is shown in this undated photo released by the Pacific Air Forces.
A U.S. B-1B Lancer strategic bomber joined a South Korea-U.S. joint air drill Saturday, one day after North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) toward the East Sea, military officials said.
According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the supersonic bomber made a sortie over South Korea’s air defense identification zone (KADIZ) escorted by South Korea’s F-35A jets and U.S. F-16 fighters.
On Friday, North Korea fired a Hwasong-17 ICBM, which is known to carry multiple warheads and have a range of around 15,000 kilometers, long enough to cover the entire U.S. mainland.
“Through this drill, we have once again demonstrated the joint military capacity of the South Korea-U.S. alliance and Washington’s commitment to protecting the Korean Peninsula and providing extended deterrence,” the JCS said.
It should be no surprise that Saudi Arabia is the country paying the most for U.S. military personnel to work for them:
Former Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Marine Gen. James Jones, speaks during a transfer of authority ceremony of NATO’s Response Force in Naples, Italy, in 2005. Saudi Arabia’s paid advisers have included Jones, now retired, a national security adviser to President Barack Obama. (Stars and Stripes)
Foreign governments have long advanced their interests in Washington by paying Americans as lobbyists, lawyers, political consultants, think tank analysts and public relations advisers. But the hiring of retired U.S. military personnel for their expertise and political clout has accelerated over the past decade as oil-rich gulf monarchies have splurged on defense spending and strengthened their security partnerships with the Pentagon.
Congress permits retired troops as well as reservists to work for foreign governments if they first obtain approval from their branch of the armed forces and the State Department. But the U.S. government has fought to keep the hirings secret. For years, it withheld virtually all information about the practice, including which countries employ the most retired U.S. service members and how much money is at stake.
To shed light on the matter, The Post sued the Army, the Air Force, the Navy, the Marine Corps and the State Department in federal court under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). After a two-year legal battle, The Post obtained more than 4,000 pages of documents, including case files for about 450 retired soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.
You can read more at the link, but the article did not mention any retired military officials working with South Korea or Japan. It appears to all be governments from the Middle East, Turkey, and Russia. The fact that Korea and Japan has USFK and USFJ probably means they don’t need to hire outside experts like these other countries are doing.
The U.S. is using a standing play from its North Korean provocation playbook by sailing in a U.S. aircraft carrier into the East Sea. This time they are doing it shortly after it already completed an exercise there:
An EA-18G Growler launches from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in the Pacific Ocean, Sept. 14, 2022. (Michael Jarmiolowski/U.S. Navy)
The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan is redeploying to South Korea’s eastern coast less than a week after it concluded trilateral naval drills with South Korean and Japanese warships.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff in a press release Wednesday said the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group would be entering international waters in the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan, on the same day due to “highly unusual” timing of North Korea’s activities.
The Pentagon’s independent commission has released what the names of Army bases named after Confederate generals will now be:
New names recommended for nine Army posts that honor Confederate generals were made public Tuesday, May 24, 2022, by an independent commission assigned to make the selections. The bases are Fort Polk in Louisiana, Fort Benning and Fort Gordon in Georgia, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Lee and Fort Pickett in Virginia, Fort Rucker in Alabama, and Fort Hood in Texas. Officials have said they would not recommend a name change for Camp Beauregard in Louisiana, which was also named for a Confederate general, because it is owned by that state’s National Guard. (Library of Congress)
The Army will now have bases named after women and African Americans if Congress and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approve the recommendations offered Tuesday by an independent commission assigned to make the selections.
Congress mandated last year that an appointed Naming Commission come up with potential new names for nine Army installations that now honor Confederate generals from the Civil War.
The nine bases are all in former Confederate states and were named during the 1910s and 1940s amid the South’s Jim Crow era.
— Fort Polk, La., to Fort Johnson after Sgt. William Henry Johnson
— Fort Benning, Ga., to Fort Moore for Lt. Gen. Hal and Julia Moore
— Fort Gordon, Ga., to Fort Eisenhower for former President Dwight Eisenhower
— Fort A.P. Hill, Va., to Fort Walker after Dr. Mary Walker
— Fort Hood, Texas, to Fort Cavazos after Gen. Richard Cavazos
— Fort Pickett, Va., to Fort Barfoot for Tech. Sgt. Van T. Barfoot
— Fort Rucker, Ala., to Fort Novosel after Chief Warrant Officer 4 Michael J. Novosel, Sr
— Fort Lee, Va., to Fort Gregg-Adams after Lt. Gen. Arthur Gregg and Lt. Col. Charity Adams
It will definitely take some time to get used to these new names, but after a decade most people will likely forget what the old names were. My favorites on this list are probably Fort Moore and Fort Eisenhower. Both are definitely worthy of a base named after them. Fort Johnson is another good one because any other military hero is better than having a base named after Polk who was an extremely poor leader during the Civil War.
This seems like quite a stretch to me because I doubt whether or not someone can have an abortion will play any role on whether someone wants to join the military:
Members of Congress, including Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-New York), Rep. Jackie Speier (D-California), Rep. Barbara Lee (C-California) and others join a pro-choice rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court as the justices hear hear arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, a case about a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, on December 01, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/TNS)
As employees of the federal government, doctors on military bases are already banned from performing abortions so female troops — and the female spouses of troops — must seek out the procedure on their own. That would become much more difficult if the Supreme Court overturns the precedent set in its Roe v. Wade ruling almost five decades ago, as a leaked draft ruling indicates it’s likely to do.
At least 26 states probably would place restrictions on abortion laws, including Texas, Florida and other southern states that have many of the nation’s military bases, according to Sean Timmons, a managing partner at Tulley Rinckey who specializes in military law.
The potential impact on recruitment and retention would come as the military is already struggling to find qualified troops. Women make up almost 20% of the 1.3 million-member active-duty force.
If you are in the military be careful what you like on social media because it could come back to haunt you:
In this photo provided by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin delivers the keynote address during at the Reagan National Defense Forum at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021. Service members who overtly support extremist groups or ideas, attempt to recruit others into such ideology, or train, organize or demonstrate in support of an extremist view are to face punishment under new guidance published by the Pentagon on Monday. (Chad J. McNeeley, Office of the Secretary of Defense via AP)
Some activity barred by the new rules may be simpler to root out than others, he acknowledged. For example, the rules ban service members from sporting clothing, tattoos or other paraphernalia promoting extremism, financially supporting an extremist cause or distributing extremist literature or materials.
However, service members could also be punished for their online actions, including posting, sharing or “liking” materials that “promote or otherwise endorse extremist activities” on the internet.
That is where a commanders’ discretion will be most important, Kirby said, noting that a service member, perhaps, could “like” a social media post by accident.
This could get interesting if troops that received the first two vaccines shots decide to not get the booster. Will the military punish them like what has been done to unvaccinated personnel?:
The Pentagon said Friday that there are “active discussions” within the department about making the COVID-19 vaccine booster shots mandatory for service members, even as thousands refuse or seek exemptions from the initial shot requirement.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said there have been no final decisions on the matter, but added that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin “absolutely encourages people, if they can and if they qualify, to get the booster. But right now there is no requirement for it.”
The defense department in August announced that it would begin requiring all members of the military — including National Guard and Reserves — to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The military services sent out specific guidelines on the mandate, set their own deadlines and laid out the repercussions for those who refused and were not granted a medical, religious or administrative exemption.
This week people are remembering the Pearl Harbor bombing, but for many military families on Hawaii they are just trying to find a place to take a shower due to the massive water contamination crisis hitting military communities there:
Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility pump room as seen on July 17, 2020. (Daniel Mayberry/U.S. Navy)
Gov. David Ige and Hawaii’s congressional delegation on Sunday called for the Navy to suspend its Red Hill fuel storage operation until its drinking water contamination crisis is handled.
The Navy on Thursday said recent testing of its Red Hill well detected the presence of petroleum contaminants. Hundreds of military and nonmilitary users of the Navy’s water system last week complained of a strong fuel odor in the water, including some who reported feeling ill or having pets who became sick after drinking water.
Ige and U.S. Sens. Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono, and Reps. Ed Case and Kai Kahele, all Democrats, released a joint statement calling for the Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, who is in Hawaii for the 80th anniversary of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, to suspend Red Hill operations in the aftermath of the contamination of drinking water at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and surrounding areas.
You can read more at the link, but the military is handing out bottle water for drinking and showering as well as moving families into available hotels.
